Les Green Archives - Ramblin' with Roger

Les Green would have been 100

Les Green

Les Green would have been 100 on September 26, 1926. He was my dad, or, as I gleaned from a speaker I saw in Chautauqua in 2024, he IS my dad. His death in 2000 does not change that fact.

I love the picture above, though I don’t know how old he is here.

Of course, I’ve written about him more than two dozen times, usually on September 25. On September 26, I write about the grandchild he never knew, my daughter. Also, I note August 10, the date he died.

I only discovered in 2019 the name of his biological father, Raymond Cone. But he was raised in the household of his grandparents, Samuel Walker and Mary Eugenia (Patterson), as well as various aunts and uncles, in Binghamton, NY.

For years, the 1930 Census confounded me. He was listed as Wesley Walker, the “son” of Samuel and Eugenia. The fiction of the relationship didn’t confuse me, but “Wesley” did. Eventually, I visited the state archives and confirmed that he was born Leslie Walker.

Les Green

Flower child

I love this photo because it reminds me of his longtime talent for arranging flowers. He worked occasionally at Costas’s flower shop in Binghamton and arranged flowers for several family weddings, debutante balls, and the like. I had /have NO talent for this, but I would accompany him and my sister Leslie and schlep stuff.

BTW, I have no idea where or, especially, when these photos were taken. He looks so happy, full of joy. There’s no sign of that weird rollercoaster that I assume he experienced living with his mother, Agatha Walker, and his stepfather, McKinley, and then not, but ultimately being adopted by Mac just before Les’ 18th birthday.

Les Green

I feel as though that, maybe, I had seen these photos before. But I certainly never had copies of them until my daughter and I went down to Charlotte, NC, in May 2026. He, Mom, and baby sister had moved down there in 1974. The daughter and I selected and scanned a bunch of pics.

It seems that I should have some profound observations on the centennial of his birth. There was some talk of maybe some family members rerecording some Green Family Singers songs, but that didn’t happen.

I still have the unanswerable questions I’ve had since he passed away. Happy birthday, dear old dad (D.O.D.), as you dubbed yourself.

“The “authentic home-grown folk singer”

Les Green, my dad

Here’s an article about my father, Les Green. It’s a column by Tom Cawley, a longtime staffer at the (Binghamton, NY) Evening Press from Friday, 2 June, 1967.

There were quite a few articles about Dad in the Binghamton papers between about 1959 until he, my mother, and my baby sister moved to Charlotte, NC, in 1974. Several of the narratives were about his civil rights activities, a bunch were about his musicality, and a few were about his other volunteer efforts.

This one is curious for a few reasons. Cawley is relying on the reporting of another person. I found Jerry Handte’s commentary somewhat limiting. That said, Les Green being “the authentic home-grown folk singer of the town he was born” with great stage presence, et al., is right on target.

Incidentally, by 1968, my father QUIT working at IBM, because the job was mind-numbing. My homeroom/biology teacher at Daniel Dickinson, Mr. Joseph, told me that my father was crazy. I happened to believe that driving materials around on forklifts was making him pretty miserable. My mother and sisters didn’t see him much during the week for that five or six years.

He ended up working for Opportunities for Broome, and Office of Equal Opportunity (OEO) more in line with his passions

But I read that he WROTE a canal song? And he was going to perform it? This is something I seem to have totally forgotten.

That he was going to perform it at the American Civil Association is not a surprise, since he volunteered there frequently. (My 16th birthday party in March 1969 was held there.)

My father died August 10, 2000, in Charlotte, NC, ostensibly from prostate cancer, at the age of 73. Hmm, I’M 73.

Les Green

57th Ordnance Ammunition Company

Father’s Day

I had written about my father’s military history in the past, notably here and especially here, but because some records of the war were lost, I never knew where he was other than in the European theater of operations in 1946, beginning in February.

Well, not until May 2026, when I found this picture at my sister Marcia’s house in Charlotte, NC. I have actually used a copy of this picture in the past.

But I had not seen the other side. By his own hand, he describes that he was a Provost Sergeant of the 57th Ordnance Company. Here’s a history of the unit, whose “duty was the procurement, storage, and distribution of ammunition.” Further, “the 57th Ordnance Ammunition Company remained in Germany until 10 December 1946, when it was officially inactivated.” That month was also when my father was mustered out of the military.

NYPL

This item from the New York Public Library intrigued me:

Harris, Charles E., 1923-1996

Charles E. Harris World War II memorabilia collection, 1944-1971 [bulk 1944-1945]

Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books Division | Sc MG 767

0.25 linear feet (1 box)

During World War II, Charles Edward Harris was in the all-Black 57th Ordnance Ammunition Company, whose duty was the procurement, storage, and distribution of ammunition. The Charles E. Harris World War II memorabilia collection includes two handwritten and typed histories of the 57th Ordnance Ammunition Company, love letters, two handkerchiefs, and a booklet.

This means that at some point I need to go to the NYPL to see whether Les Green appears in the documents. Or more specifically, MY Les Green. There are a lot of WWII soldiers named Leslie Green who are NOT the right fellow, such as this guy, this guy, and this guy.

This is my Father’s Day post, with one more nugget to explore.

Down Memory Lane – the Zionites

Trinity A.M.E. Zion church, 1956

A good friend of mine from my hometown of Binghamton, NY, Cee, wrote that on Friday, May 22, they “attended a wonderful presentation by Brenda Cave James on local Black churches, Susquehanna Street prior to urban renewal, and more.

“One of her display boards caught my eye…” A display showed two different musical revues by the folks at Trinity A.M.E. Zion church in 1948 and 1956. The latter event, with the performers dubbed the Zionites, is of particular interest to me.

Before that, a little history from WBMG-TV (2024). According to Broome County Historian Roger Luther, “AME Bethel closed its doors around 1930, and the congregation merged with AME Zion Church, formerly located where Columbus Park now stands.” I was baptized in the AME Zion church at that previous location. “In 1957, AME Zion was moved to its present-day location at the corner of Oak and Lydia streets.”

Musical triptych

There were three segments of the 1956 program, Down Memory Lane, which was directed by two women I knew from church: Beccye Fawcett, who was my boss when I worked at the Binghamton Public Library for several months in the late 1960s, and Dorothy Owens, a stalwart in the choir.

Part 1 represented the Gay Nineties. For one song, the Floradora Girls danced. Among the women: Geneivive Taylor, another librarian, and Gertrude Green, my mother! A couple of songs were performed by Luvenia McElroy, my sister Leslie’s godmother. Mack Green, presumably my grandfather McKinley Green, performed a Buck and Wing Dance.

The Roaring Twenties included Leslie Green (misspelled as Lesli) performing “Sonny Boy” with his son. Wait, what? I would have been three at the time. For the Rocking Fifties segment, my dad performed folk songs.

The December 3, 1948, performance at Binghamton Central High School also featured my mother, who was then Gertrude Williams, and my father. It was directed by Beccye Fawcett. The repertoire was limited to the Gay Nineties.

I believe Brenda Cave James is the daughter of the late Allen Cave, who was the vice-principal of Binghamton Central High School.

Encyclopedia Americana

married 76 years ago today

In musing about how I (eventually) became a librarian, I thought about how my parents bought us the Encyclopedia Americana when I was nine. Or twelve or at some time in between; I don’t quite remember.

I am pretty sure the purchase resulted from a door-to-door salesman visiting our home. While our parents didn’t get into the details of the household economy, my sisters and I knew that we weren’t particularly flush with cash.

My mother was a bookkeeper for McLean’s department store in downtown Binghamton, NY. She was well-suited to the job, as I also saw in her home budgeting.

My father was probably working nights at IBM in nearby Endicott, driving a forklift, a job he hated because it was not intellectually stimulating. He had done and was still doing other jobs, notably floral arranging, sign painting, and a bit of singing, but they were not lucrative enough to support a family of five.

So the purchase of the Americana was a big deal. I’ve read the set costs somewhere between $200 and $300, depending on the binding. That would be around $2000 in 2026 dollars.

It was pitched as an educational investment for the family. But everyone knew who was most likely to read it was the kid who memorized stats from the backs of his baseball cards.

Aardwolf?

Sure enough, I read the entire set, starting with Aachen, followed by aardvark, aardwolf… I didn’t know what that was, but it isn’t an aardvark or a wolf. It took me more than a year to finish. But I sped up the process when they purchased an annual update to the standard set, to reflect the changes, usually political.

One of my sisters commented that my father was certainly the one who used the Encyclopedia Americana more than anyone else, besides me. I was told that he wasn’t much of a student as a kid, but his innate curiosity as an adult required him to always be learning.

Along with the World Almanac, which I received for Christmas every year, my parents boosted my geek cred.

Les Green and Gertude (Trudy) Williams got married on March 12, 1950, and stayed together until my father died on August 10, 2000; my mom died on February 2, 2011.